Marriott Hotels to activate trade engagement in India to drive business to its hotels in Eastern Europe

Considering the recent momentum in travel from India to emerging destinations in Europe, especially the Eastern European countries, Marriott International will be activating its trade engagement in India in a big way in coming months and years.  Marriott Hotel Holding GmbH which takes care of the European market had recently concluded its first dedicated sales mission to Mumbai and Delhi where 20 hotels from the emerging destinations of Eastern Europe participated.  “We will be back in March with another focus group of hotels,” said Pankaj Birla, Area Vice President – Eastern Europe for Marriott Hotel Holding, underscoring the need for regular trade engagement in the India market.

“There has been over 20% growth in demand from India to our hotels in Eastern Europe between January and November, 2019.  The purpose of our visit is to drive more demand to new and emerging destinations in Europe,” he said.   Birla specifically mentioned destinations like Belgrade (Serbia), Sophia (Bulgaria), Tirana (Albania), Baku (Azerbaijan), Tbilisi (Georgia), etc., which are the new rage with Indian experience seekers. “Indians travellers have become real explorers,” he added.

Birla said that his deep knowledge about the Indian market is helping him in “sensitising” the Marriott properties in all these emerging destinations about the Indian customer demands so that their demands and sentiments are well taken care of. “I am personally sensitising each one of them to serve Indian customers better,’ he said.

Birla said that they have products to cater and appeal to all segments of travellers. ‘We have 50 hotels in the region and will be adding another 10 to 15 properties in the next two years,” he said. 

Talking specifically on products which can cater to millennial travellers, Birla said that they have a good spread of ‘Moxy’ brand targeted at millennial travellers in Europe.  There are 30 Moxy hotels in Europe and another 80 are in the pipeline across Europe, he added.

Birla said that they are also in conversation with Indian carriers like IndiGo which has announced services to destinations like Tbilisi in future. 

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